


036 - Proactive Can Suck It Tbh

by storiesaboutvan



Category: Catfish and the Bottlemen (Band)
Genre: Cute meet, F/M, Fluff, Reader-Insert, body pos
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 05:30:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,339
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17461517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storiesaboutvan/pseuds/storiesaboutvan
Summary: Filling the prompt “A fluffy fic about Van dating a girl with acne? I’ve been feeling really down about myself and my skin at the moment because it’s worse than it’s been in ages. If you don’t feel like doing it, all good!”





	036 - Proactive Can Suck It Tbh

You brushed your teeth then stared at yourself in the mirror. You were just popping out to grab a few things at the shops, so you didn't want to spend at least thirty minutes covering the redness and the acne with green concealer and foundation. It seemed like energy wasted, and it would make the pimples flare up for no good reason. What if though, you bumped into someone you knew? What if you spotted some super famous person that you loved and had to get a selfie with? You checked the weather app on your phone again and looked out the window. It was windy and cold and probably people would be avoiding going outside. It was also only just after six. Nobody would be up that early on a Sunday. It took you ten minutes to work up the courage to leave the house with only moisturiser and a mascara on.

As you filled your basket with almond milk, blueberries and dishwashing liquid, you felt secure. You turned down the refrigerated aisle and were faced with a situation that would mean you wouldn't get away with not talking to another human whilst out of the house. There was a boy. He was leaning against one of the glass doors. His head was pressed against it and his arms were around his head. It looked like he was doing the counting in a game of hide and seek, but without the counting. You started to chew your bottom lip and took a step closer, trying to determine if he was alright. You were about a metre away from him when you spoke.

"Are you okay?"

One of his arms dropped so he could turn his head to face you. He continued to lean on the fridge. He looked pretty fucked. His brown hair was sticking up at weird angles, and he looked like he hadn't slept all night. You noticed then that his black button up was creased. Why didn’t he have a jacket? It was freezing out. He made a sad face that was almost comically expressive, and shook his head.

"Not even close, love," he answered slowly. His voice was rough.

"Do you need help? I can call someone for you," you offered. He smiled.

"I just… Can't think… Red or blue?" he asked, and lifted the dropped arm to point into the fridge. You took a step closer. Powerade. You laughed. He was trying to decide between drinks.

"Um… blue?" you answered. He nodded and slowly opened the door, slowly picked up a bottle of blue, and slowly closed the door carefully. He held the bottle like a baby.

"Okay. I'm good now," he told you. "Are you?" he asked and having already concluded he was hungover and had probably yet to actually make it home, you wondered if he was maybe still just a little bit drunk too.

"Yes. I just need to grab some tofu," you told him. He smiled and nodded very, very slowly.

"Let's do that," and he started to walk in the wrong direction.

"Um… it's this way," you pointed. You started to walk and looked over your shoulder as he followed you like a lost puppy. You picked out your tofu. The boy was watching carefully.

"So many types," he whispered. You nodded, and walked to the self-serve checkout. You took the bottle out of his hands, he tried to protest but you said it was quicker this way. He nodded. You gave it back once it was scanned, and he followed you out onto the street. The wind was icy and had small drops of rain forming in it. Your apartment was on the corner of the block, but you didn't know where the boy was going.

"Where's home?" you asked him. He looked around, uncapped the Powerade and smashed it in one go. It took a minute, but you watched absolutely enthralled. You laughed when he finished.

"Probably just get Larry to come get me," he said. "Larry's my best mate." You told him to call, and you stood and listened as a boy's sleepy and confused voice on speaker asked him where the fuck he went, and where the fuck he was. The boy didn't know, so he said, "Mate, I'm just at some shops." You held your hand out.

"Hi?" you said.

"Hi? Who's this?"

"Y/N. I just… found him buying Powerade. You know that supermarket on Gem Street?"

"Wow. That's not even close to where we were. Okay, tell him that I will be maybe, like, half an hour," Larry said.

"What's his name?" you asked, and Larry laughed.

"Van. You're with Van, and he's harmless," he told you.

"I gathered that," you said as you watched Van read the notice board on the wall, nodding to himself. You thought for a second. Half an hour. Thirty minutes where he could get lost again, or freeze to death. "Um… He can come back to mine while he waits? It might be safer. I just live on the corner in that old apartment block,"

"You sure?"

"Yeah. Yeah. He's… a lost puppy?" you reasoned out loud. Larry laughed and agreed. You hung up.

"Van!" you called. He turned around, grinned, and you handed his phone back. "Larry's coming to get you, but you're going to wait at mine."

"I don't know you," he said.

"I know, but-"

"But," he interrupted, "You're very pretty and very nice." He started to walk down the street, the wrong way again. You called for him and he trotted along behind you.

Inside you directed him to sit down on the couch. He did and you found him a furry throw blanket. He wrapped it around himself. You brought him tea and he tried to drink it sideways, lying on the couch, but was unsuccessful in the endeavour. He sat up and drank. Fifteen minutes of cartoons on T.V. later and he seemed a little more coherent.

"What's your name?"

"Y/N,"

"Thank you, Y/N. You did not have to help,"

"You definitely looked like you were dying," you told him. He smiled and nodded, looking out the window. He looked back at you.

"I like your place."

Larry called and Van gave him your apartment number. You opened the door to him. Larry talked to Van like a mother would, and you only just contained laughter. He walked to you and said thank you. No trouble. He walked out, and Van followed, pausing in the doorway.

"You're class, you know," he said.

"Am I?"

"Yeah. I'm… painfully… sober now so you know I'm dead truthful. Pretty, and class. You should come out with us sometime,"

"So I too can end up lost and confused in the drinks aisle of a supermarket at six in the morning?"

"Sounds like fun, right?" He wrote his number down on the small whiteboard you had hanging by the door. You didn't know when he noticed it there, or how long he'd been planning on using it. "I'll catch you later, yeah?" You nodded and closed the door behind him.

…

As you got ready for dinner with Van a week later, you dropped your good beauty blender in the sink by accident. Your hands were shaky, and as you picked it up and washed the specks of toothpaste, primer and eyeshadow off it, you admitted that you were more than a little nervous, that you were utterly petrified. Van had seen you in the low light of early morning. He'd seen you through the happy glow of drunkenness. What if you were no longer pretty to him? What if your decent human act of helping him out wasn't so precious and sweet? Petrified. 

Your anxiety was ill-founded, though. When he arrived at your door with a punnet of blueberries wrapped in a blue ribbon, you melted into bliss. He explained that he didn't know you well enough ("yet") to judge what type of flowers you liked, but he knew you liked blueberries, and that the blue ribbon was because of the blue Powerade. You put them in the fridge and made a mental note to cherish the ribbon forever. The date was equally adorable. He took you to a Thai place and he said he checked that they do "proper vegetarian" food "without that sneaky fish oil and stuff." So, he remembered the tofu too. It became evident that Van was not a black-out-and-forget drunk, which could only mean he remembered what you looked like, how you were, and was still really into you. You without makeup, in fact.

A month of Van showing up with cute presents, cooking lessons to show him how to prepare tofu and tempeh, drunk nights with Larry and the rest of his friends, and kissing on your couch passed by quickly. You knew the next natural step was for him to stay at yours, or vice versa. It was always the point in relationships you dreaded, because it meant being bare faced, or alternatively sleeping in makeup and waking up early to reapply over really angry pimples. You trusted Van, and he'd never given any indication that he gave a fuck about your skin. He called you beautiful daily, and when his hands snaked under your shirt and his lips found yours, he'd kiss lines from your hairline all the way down. He'd kiss your cheeks when he greeted you, and would sometimes make you puff them out like a puffer fish so he could gently press them together to make funny sounds. All of that was good and fine and affirming, but it was with the expensive makeup. 

It was a little after midnight and a storm had rolled through the city. Van was sitting in front of your oven watching the dough bubble into cookies. Midnight cookies was a tradition, and usually once they'd cooled you'd pack some for Larry, and Van would kiss you goodnight and leave. As you sat on the kitchen floor with him, you watched leaves and pieces of paper fly past the window. 

"I think you should stay tonight," you told him. He looked at you and smiled. You were sitting opposite each other, with your legs outstretched and the soles of your feet pressed together.

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I don't want you driving in this weather," you explained. He nodded.

"Can I ask something?"

"Are you going to ask why it's taken this long to let you stay over?" you guessed. 

"No. I know why. You don't want me to see you without makeup, yeah?" he waited for you to say yes, but you couldn't. "I just want to know what you think is gonna happen?" It was confronting, and it was the first time you'd ever had a boy bring it up. You didn't really know what to say, because the answer was that you genuinely thought he'd stop loving you. You knew it was catastrophising the situation, and illogical to think, but the feeling was there and very real. "I hate my teeth, right. All funny. Generally think I'm funny looking, but I believe you when you tell me you think I'm good lookin',"

"You are,"

"Yeah, and I believe you. Doesn't matter what I think. You're the one that has to look at me all the time. So, I need you to believe me when I tell you that you're beautiful. You're beautiful with the fancy makeup and you're beautiful without it,"

"You don't really know that though,"

"You didn't have any on when I met you,"

"Doesn't count; you were drunk," you replied straight away. You'd thought this through. He stood up, and pulled you up to. He lead you to the bathroom. When you realised what was happening you tried to back out the room, he grabbed you by the waist and put you in front of the sink. He twirled you so you were facing the mirror, and he pressed in behind you, trapping you between the vanity and his body. He had his arms either side as a lock.

"Take it off now then. Make it count," he ordered. You could feel the pin pricks of panic starting in your feet, working their way up your legs.

"Please don't make me,"

"I'm never gonna make you do anything, Y/N, but if this is what you're afraid of, then maybe you should just… deal with it?"

He had a point. He held your hips and his thumbs rubbed gentle circles on your skin. You took a deep breath and pulled out a makeup wipe. Van watched you take it all off. The finishing powder, highlighter, foundation, concealer, and primer. The mascara, eyeshadow, eyeliner, and filled in brows. You cleaned the last of the makeup away with toner, and looked at yourself. You didn't want to see Van's face. He turned you around, and you had no choice. He was leaning to be eye level with you.

"Listen very carefully, yeah?" You nodded. "You are beautiful and perfect like this. You're never going to be more perfect." You could hear your heartbeat and your chest collapsed into itself, unable to hold the weight of all the love he was pouring into you. Your eyes welled with tears and he took your face in his hands. He kissed your left cheek, then right. He kissed your chin, then forehead, then lips. "Now can we eat the cookies?" He let go and casually walked out the room, like he hadn't just changed you.

It's not like you suddenly had perfect self-esteem after that point. Like it is for most people, learning to love all of yourself was a slow and painful process. However, Van's constant unconditional love and his unyielding obsession to kiss your face were a significant help. You didn't even have to spend ten minutes working up the courage to leave the house without makeup anymore. You could just pick up your bag, take Van's hand, and walk out the door.


End file.
